Righteousness, Circumcision, and Abraham’s Faith

“Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised” (Romans 4:9-12, ESV). 

All people (whether Jew or Gentile) are justified according to the same kind of faith-response to the Lord, not reliance on ritualistic ordinances of the old law but on God’s righteous work in Christ, trusting him to do what he promised to do when we step out in faith and do what he directs us to do. 

Circumcision, as a highly valued “work of the law” among Jews and Judaizers at the time Paul composed Romans, was being promoted as a requisite of divine favor and blessings excluding so many ethnically diverse disciples and causing unnecessary division (cf. Rom. 2:25-29; 3:1, 30; 15:8).¹ Circumcision is thus highlighted here to distinguish between what had become a meritorious work of the flesh, on one hand, and the kind of faith that enabled Abraham to be justified, on the other. “Circumcision and the Law were separate in time and in origin. But from the moment of the institution of the Law they were co-extensive in their operation: for those under the Law were under Circumcision.”²

God pronounced Abraham righteous (Gen. 12:1-3; 15:6) prior to his circumcision (Gen. 17:10-11, 24), so Abraham has become “the father of all” (both Jew and Gentile) responding to the Lord with the same kind of faith. The phrase rendered in English, “all who believe” (ESV), with two pronouns and a verb, is actually pántōn tōn pisteuóntōn (an adjective and articular participle) that should be translated, “all the believing [ones].” Paul is not telling non-Christians to get saved by merely believing without repentance and baptism; he is writing to penitent baptized believers whose faith-response has already included repentance and baptism (6:1-18). “Faith in Christ and baptism were, indeed, not so much two distinct experiences as parts of one whole. Faith in Christ was an essential element in baptism …”³

To “walk” [stoichoûsin – presently and continuously]⁴ “in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had” is not reliance on Jewish rituals (like circumcision) but living a life of obedient faith.

--Kevin L. Moore

Endnotes:

     ¹ Cf. Acts 15:1-5; Gal. 2:12; 5:1-6; 6:12-13, 15; Tit. 1:10.

     ² J. B. Lightfoot, Notes on Epistles of St Paul 280.

     ³ F. F. Bruce, Romans 129.

     ⁴ Cf. Gal. 5:25; 6:16; Phil. 3:16; compare peripatéō in Rom. 6:4; 8:1, 4; 13:13; 14:15.

Related Posts: Questions About Baptism, Abraham Believed God (Rom. 4:3), Justification, Peace, Hope (Rom 5:1-2), Baptism: Death, Burial, Resurrection (Rom 6:1-4) 

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“Abraham believed God, and It was counted to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3)

“What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.' Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Romans 4:1-5, ESV).

The Faith of Abraham

Among the first-century Roman Christians, prior knowledge of Abraham is presupposed.¹ Despite his pagan ancestry, Abraham was called and justified by God (Gen. 11:27–12:4; Josh. 24:1-3), something the Gentile Christians could appreciate. As the ancestral father of the Israelite people, he would have been highly esteemed by ethnic Jews. 

Dialogically engaged with a hypothetical Jewish discussion partner (cf. 2:17), Paul alludes to Abraham as “our forefather according to the flesh.” The term “flesh” [sárx] is descriptively linked to physical Israel and the rite of circumcision (2:28) and accompanying “works of the law” (3:20), later applied to human weakness involving sinful living (6:19; 8:4-13). Contextually, therefore, the “works” [érga] that are separate from and unrelated to justification are not just any active deeds (cf. 2:6-7) but meritorious works stemming from the Law of Moses, requisites of old-covenant Judaism, as per the foregoing discussion (3:19-20, 27-28).² It is this particular category of “works” that Paul consistently contrasts with “faith” (3:27; 9:32; cf. Gal. 2:16; 3:2-5). 

The Works of Abraham

Actively doing something is not discounted here (cf. 2:10). Rather, the issue concerns one who “works” [ergázomai] so he can “boast” [kaúchēma] (cf. 3:27) and earn “wages” [misthōs] regarded as something he is “due” [opheílēma]. But this is not how Abraham (or anyone else) was justified. According to “the Scripture,” quoting Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (also vv. 9, 22; Gal. 3:6).  

Abraham’s response to God was more than a mere passive, intellectual concession, as the English word “believe” might suggest. Up to this point in his sojourn, not only did Abraham mentally assent to God’s word but he trusted in God enough to do what God enjoined every step of the way: “By faith Abraham obeyed …” (Heb. 11:8, 17). And he continued to walk in obedient faith for the rest of his life. Paul goes on to describe Abraham as the father of those “who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had …” (Rom. 4:12), in line with how the Romans already understood active “faith” [pístis] (1:5, 8, 12). Paul never interpreted “faith” as simply a mental assent to a doctrinal truth without any active response, nor did he view the requirements of God as “works” that humans have devised to save themselves, esp. the works (deeds, actions) of humble obedience (Phil. 2:12). 

Genesis 15:6 is also quoted by the Lord’s half-brother (Jas. 2:23) to counteract a dead “faith” void of obedient “works,” concluding, “You see that a person is justified by works [érga] and not by faith alone” (v. 24). Paul and James, writing to different audiences grappling with different issues, are complementary rather than contradictory. The “works” highlighted by Paul relate to the ritualistic observances of the Mosaic Law, while the “works” in James pertain to non-meritorious demonstrations of faith, legitimizing the shared use of the same OT text. While “faith” [pístis] is our fundamental response to God (Rom. 3:27-31; 5:1-2), both James and Paul clearly show that saving faith is an active, obedient, working faith (1 Thess. 1:3; Jas. 2:14-16), i.e., “faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6).  

The Righteousness of Abraham

 For Paul, genuine “righteousness” (cf. v. 6) is appropriated through the avenue of faith and is almost always contrasted with what can be described as law-oriented works righteousness (4:11-14; 9:30-32; 10:4-10). At the same time, righteousness “obligates the redeemed one to serve God faithfully” (BAGD 197). In an ethical sense, it characterizes the life of faithful obedience that is expected of all baptized believers (6:13, 18, 19, 20).³ 

Conclusion

Paul wants his readers to know that we are justified by the same kind of faith by which Abraham was justified – a working, active, obedient faith as opposed to a Mosaic-law-oriented-meritorious-works-righteousness apart from the gospel of Christ. Saving faith is not void of obedience any more than saving obedience is void of faith. To conclude otherwise is to ignore the groundwork laid in the first three chapters of Romans.   

--Kevin L. Moore 

Endnotes:

     ¹ On the example of Abraham in the NT, see Acts 3:25; 7:2-17; 13:26; Rom. 4:1-25; 9:6-8; 11:1; Gal. 3:6-7; 2 Cor. 11:22; Heb. 6:13-15; 11:8-19; Jas. 2:20-24.

     ² A number of passages employ érgon (“work”) without nómou (“of law”) but have the same meaning (BAGD 308); e.g., Rom. 4:2, 6; 9:12; 11:6; and Eph. 2:9.

     ³ The converse – unrighteousness – is the result of disobedience (Rom. 1:28; 2:8; 3:3-5; 10:21), for which the antidote is God’s righteousness manifested in Christ and the saving power of the gospel (Rom. 1:16-17; 3:21-26). 

Related Posts: Faith and Works, Bookends of Romans, Righteousness, Circumcision, Abraham's Faith (Rom 4:9-12), Abbreviated Gospel, Baptism (Rom 6:1-4) 

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God passed over former sins? (Romans 3:25)

According to Romans 3:25, God’s righteousness is demonstrated in his “forbearance” or “merciful restraint,” “through the forbearance of the sins previously committed.”¹ Does this mean God “waited patiently to deal with sins committed in the past” (ISV), or he “let the sins previously committed go unpunished” (NASB 2020, NIV, NLT), or he “passed over” former sins (ASV, CSB, ERV, ESV, NASB 1995, NET, NKJV, N/RSV, WEB, YLT), or does this involve “remission”/ “forgiveness” (Douay-Rheims, NAB, KJV)? 

While God’s holiness demands punishment for sin, his forbearance has withheld the full extent of his wrath (cf. Acts 14:16; 17:30) until his justice could be satisfied in the sacrificial death of his Son, enabling sins (past, present, future) to be forgiven (cf. Gal. 4:4-5; Heb. 9:15, 26).²  Continuing the “covering” sense (cf. 4:7) of the mercy seat analogy (see previous post), this is not ignoring sin but providing a means of redemption without compromising or violating the holy and just nature of God. The point is “God’s ‘consistency’ in always acting in accordance with his own character.”³ Divine forbearance affords not only the opportunity but the incentive to repent (2:4).  

Paul continues in v. 26, resuming the “but now” of v. 21, noting that God’s righteousness apart from the Law, consistent with his just character and justifying activity, is demonstrated “at the present time”⁴ toward the one, not necessarily “who has faith in Jesus” (ESV), but the one “out of” [ek] the “faith of Jesus” [písteōs Iēsoû], i.e., characterized by and benefitting from Jesus’s faith(fulness). 

--Kevin L. Moore

Endnotes:

     ¹ Unless noted otherwise, scripture quotations are the author’s own translation.

     ² Foreshadowing the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, persons were saved under the old Jewish Law by God’s grace through faith (Rom. 4:3-16; cf. 3:25; 9:31-32), and “the only faith that counts for anything is a faith that responds to whatever God says (Rom. 10:17)” (Gary Workman, “The Nature of the Gospel,” in The Book of Romans 85).

     ³ Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans. NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) 240. 

     ⁴ On the timing of God’s justifying work through Christ, see esp. Rom. 5:6; Gal. 4:4; also 2 Cor. 6:2; Eph. 1:10; 1 Tim. 2:6; Tit. 1:3.

Related Posts: All Have Sinned (Rom. 3:23), Jesus Our Propriation/ Expiation

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Is Jesus Our Propitiation or Expiation?

Romans 3:24-25 speaks of “the redemption in Christ Jesus whom God purposed as a hilastērion through faith in his blood …” (author's own translation).

Jesus was “purposed” or “manifested”¹ by God as a hilastērion,² a term that conveys either “expiation” (RSV) in the sense of “atonement” (ISV, NIV, NRSV), or “propitiation” (ASV, ESV, NASB, N/KJV) in the sense of “appeasement” of divine wrath. In the LXX the word was used for the “mercy seat,” from the Heb. kappōreth (“propitiatory”), the lid of the Ark of the Covenant (Ex. 25:17-22; et al.) where Israel’s atonement was appropriated each year (Lev. 16:15-16). On either end of the gold-plated lid were two cherubim, with the presence of God in the form of the Shekinah in between. 

When Jesus had accomplished his mission on earth by way of death, burial, and resurrection, on either end of where his body had been laid were two angels (John 20:12). “Indeed, Christ has become the meeting place of God and man where the mercy of God is available because of the sacrifice of the Son.”³ While appeasing the “wrath of God” (cf. 1:18; 2:5-8) and allowing “peace with God” (1:7; 5:1), Jesus is our metaphorical “mercy seat” (CSB, NET, YLT) in the sense of “atoning sacrifice” (BSB, MSB, WEB). Does he then serve as an “expiation” (atonement) for sin, or a “propitiation” (appeasement) of divine wrath? Yes he does! 

What God has accomplished in Christ is “through faith in his blood,” a metonymy for his “death” (5:6-10).⁴ This is at the heart of the gospel message calling for an obedient faith-response where redemption is actuated  (6:3-7).

--Kevin L. Moore

Endnotes:

     ¹ The idea of planning or proposing is the more common usage of this verb (cf. Douay-Rheims, JUB), although the idea of displaying may fit the context better (cf. ASV, CEB, CSB, ERV, ESV, NASB, NET, NIV, N/KJV, NLT, N/RSV). Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are the author's own translation. 

     ² The only other occurrence in the NT of this noun is Heb. 9:5. The verbal form [hiláskomai] is found only in Luke 18:13; Heb. 2:17.

     ³ Everett F. Harrison, “Romans,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. Vol 10. Eds. Frank E. Gaebelein and J. D. Douglas (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976) 43.

     ⁴ Cf. Matt. 26:28; Acts 20:28; Eph. 1:7; 2:13; Col. 1:20; Heb. 9:11-15; 10:17-19; 13:12, 20-21; 1 Pet. 1:18-19; 1 John 1:7; Rev. 1:5; 5:9; 7:14; 12:11.

Related Posts: All Have Sinned and Fall Short of God's Glory

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